


There was once a point to this story...

by scrub456



Series: Towel Day 2016 [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Light Angst, Towel Day, storyteller John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6961096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrub456/pseuds/scrub456
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There was once a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler’s mind.” ― Douglas Adams</p>
            </blockquote>





	There was once a point to this story...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notjustmom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/gifts).



> This story started out as something else entirely, but then notjustmom and I had a conversation about the stories we write, and why we write them. Then this happened.
> 
> So, this is for my friend -- thank you. It's for the story tellers -- keep seeing to the accumulation of anthologies. And for the readers of the stories -- it's you who help us see what could be.

John Watson never considered himself a storyteller. He was no wordsmith. Author was not a career path he'd ever considered. The moment he'd learned he could have a scalpel _and_ a gun, he was positively gone on the idea.

Let the ones who were too afraid to go and do sit behind their desks and see to the accumulation of anthologies. He was a man of action, and there was too much life to be lived.

But that didn't mean he couldn't _tell_ a good story. Quite the contrary. As a matter of fact, he'd become rather skilled at spinning a fine yarn over pints. He was a master of hero lore as he crouched behind low walls, med kit strapped to his back, waiting for the signal to move out. In a locker room with the lads, legends and myths were established on his word.

The stories John told were evidence that he was alive, that he mattered in the here and now. The rapt attention of his audience, be it one mate in a pub or a platoon in the desert, offered the promise of more life to live, more tales to tell.

The day his therapist, a woman who in a different reality he would be loathe to consider a colleague, but in this reality held the potential to sway aspects of his future, suggested he start a blog, a piece of John Watson's soul died.

He'd used up all the life he'd been allotted, stamped with the label _invalid_ (and wasn't the English language just cruel, because with one word he had become both weak _and_ devoid of purpose), and damned to waste away sitting behind a desk while being encouraged to see to the accumulation of anthologies.

And suddenly the stories that had once served as proof of life were gone from his mind, and the point of John's existence vanished along with them. So he chronicled the only thing he could see ahead of him; John wrote down accounts of nothing.

Until the day, _that_ day, when his contemplation of the futility of continuing to exist as no longer valid was interrupted by a simple question. _"I heard you were off getting shot at. What happened?"_

With three words, the most threadbare retelling he'd ever given, _"I got shot,"_ John found an audience. And this audience brought with it access to an entirely new type of existence.

John traded in weak and devoid of purpose for mad, brilliant, and exhilarating.

He found he could have a sphygmomanometer (not a scalpel, but vital in its way) _and_ a gun. He also discovered it was possible to be a man of action and still see to the accumulation of anthologies.

And oh, but did he have stories to tell.

A few of the boyish myths and legends remained, and sand worn, shrapnel scarred sagas were recovered. The ones that started with, _"Me and the lads..."_ Or, _"I was elbow deep in a second lieutenant..."_ Because the life that John had once thought lost still mattered. Of course it did.

But the stories that were John’s _right now_ life, the new evidence of his physical existence, the stories that would forever be his purpose and absolute favorites (as well as a few he would grow to hate), the reflection of who he was and who he could be, the ones too personal to be chronicled for the world to see yet made for the best tall tales, all began the same way.

_"It was all because of a case..."_


End file.
